Perception-Action Coupling – The Science Between What You See and What You Do

Everything we do day to day is in response to some sort of stimulus. When our alarm goes off in the morning, we act by hitting the snooze button. When we see a step, we act by coordinating our legs to negotiate them. When something flies at us, we act to avoid it – unless you’re a goalkeeper and the object is a ball, in which case you act to move towards it.

In simplistic terms, Perception Action Coupling is the coordination between vision (including time and space) and movement, particularly of the hands and feet. It’s the link between what we see and what we do.

As you can imagine, that’s quite important. If like me you had never come across this term before, this relationship should seem intuitive and simple – you percieve the ball moving and act accordingly. But the findings of research in this area are go a bit deeper, providing us as goalkeepers and coaches with interesting implications for the way in which we train.